A Forum for the New World Order

I pulled a lady Godiva on my ‘hood.

The cops were pretty quick to arrive and beat very loudly on the door. Already a scared animal, I screamed obscenities at the door and told them to go away. I called them ‘Pigs’. Thank Goddess Christian intervened and arranged for me to speak with them on the front lawn. I decided to make a terrible impression, so I announced that I wanted to speak to Rocky Andersen. They thought it would be news to me that he is no longer Mayor. Civics geek that I am, I am fond of the current SLC Mayor as well, but you see, I had just ‘friended’ Ross ‘Rocky’ Andersen on Facebook. And in my psychotic mind; that meant something.

I mentioned several things throughout my ordeal that would clearly indicate to anyone observing that I was psychotic. And, indeed, I was; as indicated on my chart. I used evil eyes on too many unwitting observers/ hospital personnel. It really wasn’t fair. But as they shot me up with tranquilizers, I thought they might be putting me to sleep (you know; out of my ‘misery’). So if that helps people understand mental illness, I’m glad I could help.

Because I didn’t know who to trust just then. I picture a world in pain. Looking for dignity. I see a dearth of trust.

I trust no one had a camera on me that day. Then again; I was asking for it.

I was looking for my Dad, but all I saw was a suited man waddling in gorilla-gait opposite my trajectory. The new facility had, after an emergency intervention to relieve me of my psychoses, provided me with sensory gestalt to add new (now systematically demonstrable) hyperlinked abstractions to my paranoid mental collage;  this particular hospital was utterly devoid of the number of sick individuals I had imagined. It was new and bright, and in multi-media-like mental compositions, (what I can only call) my consciousness became aware of a human landscape so terrible, I couldn’t talk about it. Not yet.

I had checked out, and hunched in shame for fetching my father after putting him through what I did overnight, not canceling out the shame already felt for my offensive sensory presence (read: B.O.; a common side-effect of psychosis). So when I found him, and humbly gestured that we were leaving, and walked ahead of him, I delicately balanced my shame posture with my adrenaline-fueled dignity-preservation-effort already in progress. I must have wobbled. I was a cat out of a bag.

I told what I now know are tall tales. My reality wasn’t synching up with that of most anyone I encountered that night. Except, oddly, for that crisis counselor. I think he was a Buddhist, and looking back I’m not sure if it was a form of goading I mistook for empathy, or something in-between. But his assessment was Generalized Anxiety Disorder, with possible bipolar. We never could figure out his hesitancy to accept a bipolar diagnosis. My attempt to follow up on my psychiatric needs has been confusing and unnecessarily drawn-out and damaging, mentally and interpersonally.

It started with my interest in the idea of anxiety. It’s presence in the wild assumes shorter encounters with it; in times of dangers requiring us to fight or flee. Knowing these punctuated reactions occur naturally, our quick-paced culture would only serve to lengthen our exposure to the effects of the fight or flight reaction. My first psych cried Major Depression! But he has since lost his license.

The bright white passageway back to the lobby and out to a very strange outside world took us past a room garnished with baby balloons, and containing the man from the beginning of my intra-hospital paternal search lap. Proud, broad, bowed.

I had come to know the Pre-9-11 corridors of airports, on account of the welcoming/bon-voyaging of several friendly exchange students over the years, and because it is was also customary to see Missionary well-wishers at the Pre-9-11 gate, this time, I was seeing my sister off. She was heading to Ecuador to give some people some hope. All I could think about was my coursework. I was now persuing graphic design; after being shot down by German and Women’s Studies. But school now involved things which genuinely intimidated me; things like french curves and gouache.

My hands were always rattling. I was now diving headlong into anxiety; fueled by a career and lifestyle™ that would accept nothing less than perfection. You can see how this might pose a problem for people wielding Design tools of deadly accuracy. I’m still not sure how I made it. Neither is Christian.

As my rattled hands punctuated my farewell to my sister, I remember having the distinct feeling that I had already boarded some metaphorical airplane to nowhere. I knew what I WANTED to do with my degree, but I knew only in my bones what the crushing reality of my decision would be. Seeing Jodie go was tough just then, and escaping the airport’s long, Pre-9-11 terminal prolonged the agoraphobic sadness I seemed to now swim in daily.

Post-9-11 has been hard on me for bigger reasons that I haven’t ever been able to explain; involving air travel, too, mostly. I came to avoid it by not being able to afford it. Luckily, medicated; I can fly, if necessary.